History of Racial Segregation in the United States

• Author: John Hope Franklin
• Date: 01 March 1956
• Published date: 01 March 1956
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625630400103
• Subject Matter: Articles

1

History

of

Racial

Segregation

in

the

United

States

By

JOHN

HOPE

FRANKLIN

HE

enactment

of

state

segregation

T statutes

is

a

relatively

recent

phe-

nomenon

in

the

history

of

race

rela-

tions

in

the

United

States.

Of

course

there

had

been

numerous

segregation

practices

and

some

segregation

statutes

for

many

years,

even

before the

nine-

teenth

century.

But

it

was

not

until

the

final

quarter

of

the

nineteenth

cen-

tury

that

states

began

to

evolve

a

sys-

tematic

program

of

legally

separating

whites

and

Negroes

in

every

possible

area

of

activity.

And

it

was

not

until

the

twentieth

century

that

these

laws

became

a

major

apparatus

for

keeping

the

Negro

&dquo;in

his

place.&dquo;

They

were

both

comprehensive

and

generally

ac-

ceptable,

because

they

received

their

in-

spiration

from

a

persistent

and

tena-

cious

assumption

of

the innate

inferi-

ority

of

the

Negro

and

because

they

had

their

roots

deep

in

the

ante-bellum

pe-

riod.’

LEGACY

OF

THE

SLAVE

REGIME

For

centuries

many

Northerners

and

Southerners

subscribed

to

the

view

that

Negroes

were

of

a

permanently

inferior

type.

As

slavery

came

to

be

concen-

trated in

the

Southern

states

and

as

that

section

became

conspicuous

by

the

tenacity

with

which

it

held

on

to

slavery,

it

built

its

defenses

of

the

insti-

tution

along

lines

of

the

inferiority

of

the

Negro.

A

whole

body

of

thought

was

set

forth

to

demonstrate

that

&dquo;the

faculties

of

the

Negro,

as

compared

with

those

of

the

Saxon,

qualified

him

for

a

state

of

servitude

and

made

him

unfit

for

the

enjoyment

of

freedom.&dquo;

2

Slavery

was,

therefore,

the

natural

lot

of

the

Negro;

and

any

efforts

to

ele-

vate

him

to

the

status

of

freedom

and

equality

were

manifestly

in

opposition

to

the

laws

of

nature

and

of

God.

The

slaveholder’s

task

of

keeping

the

Negro

slave

in

his

place

was

compli-

cated

by

the

presence

of

several

hun-

dred

thousand

Negroes

who

were

not

slaves,

although

they

can

hardly

be

de-

scribed

as

wholly

free.

So

that

they

would

not

constitute

a

threat

to

the

slave

regime,

free

Negroes

were

denied

the

full

rights

and

privileges

of

citizens.

They

enjoyed

no

equality

in

the

courts,

their

right

to

assemble

was

denied,

their

movements

were

circumscribed,

and

edu-

cation

was

withheld.

Their

miserable

plight

caused

them

to

be

unfavorably

compared

with

slaves

and

confirmed

the

views

of

many

that

Negroes

could

not

profit

by

freedom.

They

were

re-

garded

as

the

&dquo;very

drones

and

pests

of

society,&dquo;

pariahs

of

the

land,

and

an

incubus

on

the

body

politic.

Outside

the

South

free

Negroes

fared

1

For

an

illuminating

discussion

of

the

as-

sumptions

of

the

inferiority

of

the

Negro

see

Guion

Griffis

Johnson,

"The

Ideology

of

White

Supremacy,

1876-1910,"

in

Fletcher

M.

Green

(Ed.),

Essays

in

Southern

History

Presented

to

Joseph

Grégoire

de Roulhac

Hamilton

(Chapel

Hill:

University

of

North

Carolina

Press,

1949),

pp.

124-56.

2

William

S.

Jenkins,

Pro-Slavery

Thought

in

the

Old

South

(Chapel

Hill:

University

of

North

Carolina

Press,

1935),

p.

243.

See

also

Albert

T.

Bledsoe,

"Liberty

and

Slavery,

or

Slavery

in

the

Light

of

Moral

and

Political

Philosophy,"

and

Samuel

C.

Cartwright,

"Slavery

in

the

Light

of

Ethnology,"

in

E.

N.

Elliott,

Cotton

Is

King,

and

Pro-

Slavery

Arguments

(Augusta,

Ga.:

Pritchard,

Abbott

and

Loomis,

1860),

pp.

271-458,

691-

728.